CindyKern9 Excellent 82 minute story which plots justice, morality and law against a small community's mayor whose "accounting methods" (during a very distressed economically period) become questioned by a mock Grand Jury proceeding held by studying local Law Students.Particular note was a very enjoyable ending which ultimately leaves the viewers to decide where their boundaries of law, justice and morality would reside if tasked with leading a community through a period of economically induced suffrage.For this viewer "Handle with Care" was an elegant (Thomas Mitchell) depiction of a conundrum.

deschreiber This is a very interesting idea for a movie, but here's it's been done in a pretty hokey way, with amateurish writing and some weak acting. A decent scriptwriter, backed up by serious talent in the acting and directing departments, could make an excellent movie of it. There's the sense of unravelling a mystery, the young generation against the older, the whiff of corruption in a picture-perfect town, and a climactic scene that the audience has been waiting for all along. I wasn't particularly surprised at the ending here, since it could have gone in only one of two ways, but a more creative approach could cap everything off in a more interesting way.

harry-76 It plays like a Playhouse 90 tv drama: relatively short on 82 minutes, black and white, with economy script and production values.Nothing to attract much attention here, except when one notices the name of Thomas Mitchell in the cast. Seldom did this legendary character actor appear in something that wasn't worth watching.In this case, he's Williston, Mayor of a small town, being "investigated" by a collegiate mock court, undergoing their final exams. He willingly cooperates, until the court's "D.A." begins to uncover something unbalanced in tax books back in '32 and '33.How far to go in pursuing this investigation of a now-beloved, long-term Mayor? It's Dean Jones, cast in the "D.A." role of Zach Davis, who must decide.The whole town to a fault loves the Mayor and turns against Zach, when word about the investigation leaks out. It's Zach who must choose to go "all the way" or not.A constantly interesting story, with some nice character and plot turns transpire. Also the philosophical question of whether unyielding factual truth must be pursued and exposed, no matter what the circumstances. Is there only one right and one wrong, or are there some shades of gray?Jones is fine as the idealistic student lawyer, Walter Abel is strong as Jones' law teacher, Prof. Bowdin, and Mitchell is wonderful, as always, as Mayor Williston.How nice to have this little mid-50s drama (made by MGM, probably on its B-budget backlot) preserved and shown on the AMC channel. I'd say it accurately represents the quality of many such small-budget productions of that period, which is to say, it's nicely scripted, well acted, and thought provoking.

NORDIC-2 'Handle With Care' is not a great film but certainly an interesting one, at least in terms of its subliminal politics. A young, brash law student (Dean Jones, later a Disney regular) investigates city hall and uncovers a skeleton in the mayor's past. It seems that, back in '32 and '33, when the mayor (Thomas Mitchell) was county tax collector, he signed receipts for a lot more money in tax payments than was actually deposited, which suggests embezzlement. Come to find out, the good mayor signed phony receipts so that destitute farmers could keep their land during the worst years of the Great Depression. The crusading young lawyer, who happens to be an outsider to this close-knit community, is a stand-in for all leftist muckrakers and outside agitators who wish to discover the worst about "The American Way." The mayor, a kind of proto-FDR figure, bends the rules but still works within the system to assure the common welfare. Naysayers get their comeuppance and the system, though flawed, is vindicated in this classic repudiation of Thirties radicalism that came out at the tail end of the Fifties "Red Scare."